The invention disclosed herein relates generally to performing storage operations on electronic data in a computer network. More particularly, the present invention relates to integrating storage-related operations for a computer network according to a specified hierarchy of storage operation cells.
Current storage management systems employ a number of different methods perform storage operations on electronic data. For example, data can be stored as a primary copy, as a snapshot copy, as a backup copy, a hierarchical storage management copy (“HSM”), as an archive copy, and as other types of copies.
A primary copy of data generally comprises the production copy or other “live” version of the data used by a software application and in the native format of that application. A snapshot copy generally comprises a copy of the primary copy data at a certain point in time and is usually stored on a magnetic media storage device or other readily accessible storage device.
A backup copy is a point-in-time copy of the primary copy data stored in a backup format as opposed to in native application format. For example, a backup copy may be stored in a backup format that is optimized for compression and efficient long-term storage.
An HSM copy is a copy of the primary copy data, but generally comprises only a subset of the primary copy data that meets a certain criteria and is usually stored in a format other than the native application format. For example, an HSM copy might comprise only that data from the primary copy is larger than a given size threshold or older than a given age threshold and that is stored in a backup format. Often, HSM data is removed from the primary copy, but a stub is stored in the primary copy to indicate where to locate the data. When a user requests access to the HSM data that has been removed or migrated, systems use the stub to locate the data and make recovery of the data appear transparent even though the HSM data may be stored at a location different from the remaining primary copy data.
An archive copy is generally similar to an HSM copy, however, the data satisfying the criteria for removal from the primary copy is generally completely removed and no stub is left in the primary copy to indicate the location where the data has been moved. Archive copies of data are generally stored in a backup format or other non-native application format.
Examples of various types of data and copies of data are further described in the above-referenced related applications which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. One example of a system that performs storage operations on electronic data that produce such copies of data is the Galaxy storage management system by CommVault Systems of Oceanport, N.J.
The Galaxy system leverages a modular storage management architecture that includes, among other things, storage manager components, client or data agent components, and media agent components as further described in Application Ser. No. 60/460,234 which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The Galaxy system also can be hierarchically configured into backup cells to store and retrieve backup copies of electronic data as further described in application Ser. No. 09/354,058 which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
While the Galaxy system offers a number of advantages over other systems, backup cells are still only hierarchically configured to perform backups of data and not directed to performing other types of storage operations. There is thus a need for systems and methods to hierarchically configure backup cells to perform other types of storage operations including snapshot copies, HSM copies, archive copies, and other types of copies of electronic data.